This is an online journal of our education journey. We like to read living books, do lapbooks, projects, and unit studies. We go on educational trips and get together with other families for different clubs.

Monday, 29 October 2012

At Least I Can Cook

One of the challenges with home education is working through my own weaknesses in order to give my children a well rounded education.

There are many ways of doing this, I can either send them to school where they will have teacher who specialised in the subject, I can hire a private tutor to come to our home, or I can try and do the Marge Simpson approach which is to be one lesson ahead of them.

It is when I come to my weak points that I realise how difficult education is. Obviously for M it is quite easy because she is the little sponge and the subject matter for her is quite easy, she is after all only six years old. At her level my own weaknesses are not barriers to her learning.

When I get to L's level that's when my weaknesses come to light and I really think that she should probably go to school because I might be ruining her chances in life for further and higher education. Then something wonderful happens, I like to call it Divine Providence. Someone is put in my path who can help me over that hump and can contribute to our education experience. There is really only one subject that she is taking an exam in that I absolutely cannot do, but I have a solution for that, someone else will teach her.

Today was a highly frustrating day for me. I spent three hours trying to figure out how to use my sewing machine. I've had it for over two years but have only used it once and L used it more than I did. It has been in its box now for just over two years. To cut a long story short, two broken needles and a lot of frustration later the sewing machine went back into its box while I decide whether to give it away, sell it or keep it. The item I wanted to mend is still in need of mending. A friend of mine will come and do the sewing for me.

I was forced to take sewing in school when I was 12. We had to make a garment to wear in the school fashion show. Everyone who took sewing that school year had to participate. Sewing was mandatory for girls in the seventh grade and so I had to take it. I also had to take cooking that year. I would go each lesson to the sewing room and didn't make much progress on my item. That is probably because I chose to make knickerbockers which are not really easy to make; I should have made a skirt!

Needless to say I did not finish it during class time. The fashion show was looming and I was really panicked. I took the sewing project home and I honestly thought I was going to get help. Instead it was so hopeless trying to help me, my parents finished my sewing project for me! Dad helped Mom work out how to put the zipper in them. I wore them in the fashion show and learned a very valuable lesson, sewing machines and I are not friends. That lesson is one I keep forgetting but then each time I try and use a sewing machine I am very soon reminded of it.

The next year I did not have to take sewing and so I didn't. I took woodworking instead. I find the machinery in woodworking a lot less dangerous than sewing machines and much easier to use, or at least that's how I remember it with my rose coloured glasses.